


Can't Fool a Fooler

by Zeke Black (istia)



Series: Los Hermanos [2]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, POV Chris Larabee, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-16
Updated: 2009-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-02 06:15:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istia/pseuds/Zeke%20Black
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maude pays Ezra an unannounced visit. A <em>Los Hermanos</em> story, where the Seven are brothers and half-brothers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't Fool a Fooler

###### JUNE 1980

The beads of water on Ezra's warm nape tasted of the prissy bodywash he'd picked up in the store in the hotel lobby, but Chris nuzzled closer and got to the familiar scent of Ezra under the alienness. He licked along the tendon joining Ezra's neck and shoulder, rewarded with a murmured sigh as Ezra tipped his head to the side, his eyes drooping shut. Ezra also stopped trying to get his shirt off, elbows trapped at his sides by the cloth and the light restraint of Chris's arms from behind. Chris hid a smile against the delicate skin behind Ezra's ear, then traced the tip of his tongue along the outer curve. As Ezra shivered, Chris took advantage of his distraction, lifting both hands to Ezra's bare shoulders, sliding them down over the soft skin of Ezra's upper arms to hook his fingers in the bunched linen of the shirt and push--

A loud rap on the room door froze him like a startled deer. Tension flooded Ezra's muscles under his hands and Chris turned his head aside just in time to avoid being bashed as Ezra's head jerked up. Ezra took a breath and huffed out a laugh as he stepped away from Chris and pulled his shirt fully up over his arms, shrugging it onto his shoulders. Chris crossed his arms across his chest and leaned against the wall, watching with narrowed eyes as the smooth planes of Ezra's chest disappeared from view with the rapid buttoning of his shirt.

"Excellent foray, Chris; your pincer movement combined with the infiltration assault on Tac HQ almost won you the field." Ezra gave a sparkling smile and leaned forward, Colgate-flavored breath wafting against Chris's mouth as he spoke. "But we can't go back to bed--no matter how appealing the prospect--before we take care of business." He dotted a kiss to the corner of Chris's quirking mouth before pulling back with his dimples in full display.

Knocking sounded again on the door, longer and even louder than the first tattoo. Ezra glanced into the room and shook his head. "What on earth."

"Maid service, maybe."

Ezra shrugged while tucking his shirt into his pants. "Seems a little early, but all to the good. Everything'll be ready before we get back. I'll tell her we'll be out of the room in fifteen minutes."

Chris reached across the narrow space and hooked a finger into the top of Ezra's shirt, brushing the pad of his index finger against warm skin. "Why don't you tell her to come back in an hour?"

Ezra extricated Chris's hand, lifting it to his mouth to nip his finger, eyes bright with sultry amusement as he met Chris's grin. He released Chris's hand and turned to leave the bathroom. "How about I suggest she return in twenty minutes and you finish getting washed and dressed so we can go out. By the time we've found the supplies Buck and the others want, we'll have clean sheets awaiting us and an entirely free afternoon, evening, and night to enjoy them without interruption."

Ezra paused to look back at him, his eyes smoky and the tip of his tongue wetting his lips to a pink gloss. "The definition of heaven, wouldn't you say?" With a waggle of his eyebrows, he turned and strode across the small room toward the door.

Chris kicked the bathroom door shut with a snort of laughter and stepped into the water-beaded tub, willing his incipient arousal away as he turned the shower to cooler than he normally liked. Three stolen days away with Ezra in a hotel in the anonymity of Portland, not counting the travel to and from the ranch, meant two nights of freedom to touch each other whenever and however they liked; to talk without holding back; to tease and laugh and not worry about making anyone else uncomfortable: Somebody, say, such as one of his brothers. The brothers they cared about and didn't want to offend or hurt, even though no one would hold it against him or Ezra. The others' acceptance of their desires didn't mean the boys wouldn't be happier if they could just forget what he and Ezra did together.

So they didn't touch at home outside the haven of Chris's bedroom, and they didn't make plans for time alone together where the others might hear and didn't share private jokes. They didn't walk around the house half-naked so they could enjoy the views and their mutual sexual awareness of each other, and they didn't steal kisses or hold hands or eat dinner in bed or have sex in the bathroom, the living room, on the couch or against the kitchen wall. They didn't sleep wrapped in blankets on the floor in front of the fireplace.

They didn't speak in normal voices as they had sex in the darkest part of the night, while the rest of the house slept and they were hyper-conscious of the squeak of Chris's bedframe.

Though none of that made the sex bad at home; the opposite, oddly. Chris got out of the shower and rubbed a towel over his head and down his chest before swiping it over the steamed-up mirror. He shaved on autopilot as the mirror fogged up again, hiding his own reminiscent smile. Ezra's inability not to speak during sex led to a low-voiced growl of incessant words spilled into the dark at home, his accented voice drawling fifty-dollar words sinuous as snakes against Chris's skin, broken up with short, explosive cuss words that came with fingertip bruises and teeth marks that didn't--quite--draw blood. Being together away from home was a holiday treat because of its differences, but Chris reckoned the little freedoms they gained wouldn't be worth trading off for the intensity they experienced every freaking night when they came together after carefully holding themselves apart all day. A snack was a feast to a starving man, not a well-fed one.

And speaking of which, he was ready to get back to the feasting sooner rather than later since they'd be heading home in the morning and didn't have time to waste. He slapped on some of Ezra's expensive aftershave, combed his damp hair back off his forehead, and figured that was good enough for a shopping trip. He tucked the towel around his waist, paused to listen at the door and, hearing only silence, opened it and went into the main room.

He lifted his arms out from his sides in display mode as he entered the room. "Ezra, last chance to get me out of this towel and back into--"

Ezra's wide eyes and slashing gesture registered in the same instant Chris noticed a stylish blonde woman looking up from the phone she was dialing on the bureau. Her shapely eyebrows rose as she looked him up and down, then a piquant smile was directed at him without a trace of embarrassment.

"Sorry, I didn't realize we had company." Chris blinked at his own inanity and looked a question at Ezra, who now seemed resigned and just shrugged with a shake of his head. "I'll, uh--" He indicated the bathroom behind him.

"Please, don't feel you need to retreat on my account." The woman had replaced the phone and was still staring at him with provocative directness; her voice was coquettish, but it was her accent that made him pause. He shot another look at Ezra just as she said, with obvious amusement, "Ezra, darling, aren't you going to introduce me to this charming young man?"

Ezra bowed his head and pinched the bridge of his nose, but spoke with polite blandness. "Mother, please allow me to present Chris. Chris, I'd like you to meet my mother, Maude Standish."

"Enchantee." She held out a slender, elegant hand. Her face was schooled into a social smile, but her eyes radiated amusement and her entire stance was a challenge. He had the distinct feeling she found it gratifying to fluster men at any opportunity.

He pasted on the polite version of the smile he'd been perfecting since his first confrontation with a bully in elementary school; the one Buck called his fuck-with-me-and-bite-the-dust smile. He crossed the room to her with deliberate focus, ignoring a drop of water that fell from his hair onto his shoulder and rolled down his chest and the way the towel stretched across his groin as he moved. He kept his eyes on her--on Ezra's mother. On the woman who'd raised his little brother to be someone entirely different from what he'd started out as, who had used Ezra in schemes throughout his childhood. Who had also protected and loved him, he supposed, in her way, but exposed him to dangers and hurt Chris had caught only glimmers of, just enough to raise his hackles at seeing her.

But also the woman who had raised Ezra to be the particular person he was, this man Chris wanted and needed with maybe too much passion. He'd hoped never to meet her specifically to avoid having to face this tangle of feelings.

Her hand was cool and felt baby-soft, small within his own, but her grip was strong and confident. They took each other's measure as they held the clasp for moments longer than politeness warranted. She was tall, but he still loomed over her, which didn't make her steely gaze or the faintly amused pursing of her lovely mouth waver. He studied her, seeing nothing but mature beauty and flawless charm while aware her fine eyes were probably far more successfully cataloging his tells. He maintained his challenging smile down at her and tried to give away as little as he could, but he knew a master when he met one.

He wasn't sure which of them would've broken their silent sparring match first if Ezra hadn't intervened. He took his mother's arm and turned her toward the door so her hold on Chris's hand flowed away, her fingertips leaving a tingle on his skin like the brush of Chinese silk. "Mother, why don't we go downstairs to the restaurant and talk. You can make your phone call from there and Chris can have privacy to get dressed."

"Of course, darling, whatever you like." She pulled Ezra to an imperious halt as he held the door open for her, and turned to aim a brilliant smile back at Chris. Her voice dropped in pitch. "I do hope you'll join us, Mr.--?"

He deepened his own smile. "Chris."

"Mr. Chris." She spoke with an arch head-tilt.

Ezra rolled his eyes and pulled her into the hallway, their voices drifting back to Chris as the door swung shut behind them: "Was it necessary to ogle him like a slab of meat?" and his mother's higher but otherwise matched Southern syllables fading as they moved away, "I really have no idea what you...."

Chris sank down on the end of the bed nearest the bathroom. They always got a room with two beds and made sure to muss up the second one before leaving the room for maid service. He turned his head and surveyed the other bed, pristine as when they'd arrived other than a slight disarrangement of the bedspread under the weight of Ezra's monogrammed leather overnight bag and his own battered canvas knapsack plopped beside it. A black T-shirt Ezra had dragged half out of the knapsack in pawing through it last night for the tube of KY straggled like an odd umbilical cord between the two incongruous bags.

He huffed a laugh and stood, shedding the towel on the wreck of the bed they'd used. He doubted Maude's smiling but sharp eyes had missed the blatant clues, but nothing to be done about it. As he pulled on underwear and his clean pair of black jeans, he tried to ignore the prickle of unease that ran up his spine. Realistically, he'd known he might meet Ezra's adoptive mother one day, just as he expected he might meet some of Vin's extended family sometime; practically, however, he'd hoped to avoid Maude Standish entirely.

He'd never practiced denial in his life. Not because it was cowardly--he'd had enough mornings after losing Sarah and Adam, when he'd barely been able to drag himself out of bed to face another day, to recognize the cowardice in himself--but because it was futile. He saw himself clearly enough, though, to know he was practicing avoidance with Ezra's past. This relationship they had--this hidden, secretive thing between them that had become vital to him--was built on his refusal to equate the Ezra he knew with the little brother he'd lost twenty years ago.

Easy enough to do because it was damned obvious his little brother would never have grown up to be this Ezra if their parents hadn't been killed. The slick, devious con man and gambler Ezra had become was due entirely to Maude Standish's teaching and influence. He had no trouble partitioning off his brain, one compartment containing this adult Ezra he was involved with more deeply than anyone else he'd known except Sarah, another cubicle holding his memories of the six-year-old brother he'd long ago loved and lost.

And for that, fucking bizarrely, he was grateful to Maude. If Ezra had been adopted by a more normal family and come back to them recognizably one of them, with experiences they could understand and a familiar way of looking at the world--like Nathan and Vin and JD--he wouldn't be this challenging, intriguing person Chris cared about the way he shouldn't; the way he valued too damned much.

He'd barred Ezra from talking about his childhood, and Ezra understood. He wasn't sure how Ezra dealt with his feelings for the older brother he'd once known and for the man Chris now was, but Ezra respected Chris's need for a buffer between their shared distant pasts and their presents.

Their brothers, though, didn't share Chris's desire to separate past and present. JD in particular was curious about Ezra's experiences growing up, eager to compare them to his own. Chris reckoned JD still saw Ezra as something of an exotic bird that had set down in their midst, all bright plumage and clever tongue, his accent alone hinting of mysteries JD was avid to hear about. Ezra tried to avoid exchanging childhood tales when Chris was around, and Chris tried to excuse himself when the topic came up, but the family simply pretended the relationship between Chris and Ezra didn't exist. That's how their brothers coped with it, and he and Ezra never drew attention to it for their sakes, so none of them had to think about it. The strategy worked for all of them--hell, it wasn't like Chris ever wanted to discuss it with any of them!--but it also meant Chris couldn't entirely avoid hearing about Ezra's past.

So while part of him was grateful for Maude's having made Ezra what he was, another, deeper part, boiled with anger at her for how she'd treated a little boy he'd once loved whose memory he'd done his best to bury.

He scrubbed a hand over his face when he was dressed, and turned to shift the bags off the second bed and jerk the covers down. The past wasn't the issue and Ezra's childhood was long gone. Ezra himself loved this woman he called "mother" even while he clashed with her continually; Ezra seemed uniquely capable of walking a tightrope of positive and negative feelings and keeping his balance, possibly another of Maude's legacies. And that was the only thing that mattered, same as with Vin and Nathan and their "other" families: Ezra cared about her, would always keep her in his life, and made regular trips to visit her. Chris could avoid thinking about Maude for the most part, but he couldn't ignore Ezra's feelings for her.

The present...hell, Maude was here, they'd met, and the choice of avoiding her in person was out the window. Chris shrugged into his dark jacket, grabbed his wallet and key, and headed downstairs.

He found Ezra and Maude in the dining room, finishing up a quick brunch. For Maude, that seemed to consist of buttered toast and a herbal tea that smelled like clover. Ezra was nursing a cup of coffee over the remains of a heartier meal. He looked relaxed and amused as he listened to his mother talk, but as Chris approached the table, he could see the tension in the back of Ezra's neck, and the smile Ezra slid his way had more than a touch of worry in it. Chris seated himself beside Ezra and leaned back, resting his hands in his lap as he settled his eyes on Maude.

"Why, Mr. Chris, how lovely of you to join us." Maude batted her eyelashes at him in an outrageous way that shouldn't have been as attractive as it was on a fifty-something woman talking to her son's...paramour, seemed to be the word she favored.

Ezra spent the next quarter hour rolling his eyes at his mother's notions of entertaining social chatter as Chris dug into eggs and Canadian bacon and discovered genuine entertainment in realizing she was behaving as she was primarily because it made Ezra antsy.

"I do wish you'd stop calling him that," Ezra sighed on her third repetition of "paramour."

"Why, darling, whatever for? Surely we're not to resort to meaningless euphemisms such as 'friend' or--heaven forbid!--'companion,' are we? You will likely recall that Aunt Beattie had a 'companion' for at least forty years, but the entire family used that silly term in a stubborn refusal to acknowledge what was obvious even to you as an itty-bitty boy."

"Yes, well, the times you dumped me with Beattie and Olive were among the happiest intervals in my childhood, so 'companion' isn't as tainted a word for me, perhaps." Ezra's voice was sour and he'd retreated behind a poker face.

Which likely didn't fool Maude, who sent him a shrewd look. "Yes, but you were perhaps too young to have understood how that sad business ended. When Beattie had the stroke, the family ejected her 'dear friend Olive' from both the home they'd shared and Beattie's life, making all the decisions for Beattie themselves." She switched her gaze to Chris, who met her eyes with steely attention of his own as he recognized a message being passed. "Poor Beattie passed the last three years of her life confined to a nursing home and never saw Olive again."

Ezra jerked his head up, frowning. "Wait, what are you saying? I was told Auntie Beattie died when she had the stroke."

"Well, of course, darling. It was terribly painful to visit her; all she did was cry and ask for Olive. She was inconsolable, lost in grief, and more strokes rapidly followed the first until she had virtually no memories of anyone _but_ Olive. You couldn't possibly have handled any of that unpleasant matter well at your age." Her eyes switched to Chris again. "He was always such a sensitive child, you know." She drew out all three syllables in "sensitive" and the corners of her mouth quirked.

Chris was amused to see her ploy had successfully diverted Ezra, who spoke in a waspish voice: "Such a charming story to regale us with over lunch, Mother. Thank you so very much."

"Well, all I'm pointing out is that euphemisms can be rather nasty things. Much better to call a--"

"Mother," Ezra said in a warning tone.

"--pot a pot. Don't you agree, Mr. Chris?" Her long, mascaraed lashes fluttered at him again.

He gave a wolfish smile and kept his voice honey smooth. "My mother taught me honesty is always the best policy. As I'm aware you've taken pains to teach Ezra."

She gave a tinkling laugh of what sounded like genuine pleasure while Ezra rolled his eyes again. "Exactly. I'm glad we understand each other." She turned back to Ezra. "Though you know, darling, Brandi Mitchelson is still on the shelf awaiting her prince's arrival."

Ezra shook his head with a wry smile, his good humor apparently restored. "Even her father's large, ill-gotten fortune couldn't reconcile me to squiring a woman with the ridiculous name of 'Brandi'. Isn't it time you stopped beating that particular dead horse?"

She moued with a little worth-a-try shrug, gathered her purse from the chair beside her and stood. Chris got to his feet, stepping back so Ezra could squeeze past him. Ezra leaned down to kiss her cheek as she air-kissed his.

"Take care of yourself, Mother."

She touched a hand to his cheek with a small, intimate smile, and her voice was soft and sweet. "I always do, darling."

She turned and held her hand out to Chris; he took it, feeling again the strength within its deceptive smallness and softness. "An unexpected, but purely delightful, meeting, Mr. Chris. Do take care of my baby boy, won't you? And if you ever tire of youthful--"

"Mother, didn't you say you had a meeting you didn't want to miss?"

She laughed as she let go of Chris's hand. "I do indeed."

She inclined her head to them and walked out of the room, her regal confidence attracting looks like a high-stepping Kentucky Derby winner. Ezra dropped back into his chair; Chris took Maude's vacated one opposite him, pushing the dishes aside so he could lean his elbows on the table.

"A remarkable woman, my mother--but just a tad exhausting." Ezra frowned and gave him a searching look. "Are you all right with, uh--" he waved his hand "--this? If she'd called ahead, given us a hint of warning--"

"Can't be helped; it's done now. She seems accepting enough."

Ezra relaxed back into the chair with the same kind of liquid grace Maude possessed; Chris dragged his eyes with an effort up to Ezra's face from the flex of chest muscles visible through his fine linen shirt, and met a mischievous, knowing smile. Chris leaned back in his own cock-tease pose and smirked as Ezra's eyes flicked down, then up. Ezra cleared his throat.

"Yes, well, she's had plenty of time to get used to what she calls my 'inconvenient proclivities.' She's been throwing Brandies at me since I was sixteen; I've dated my share of them in the course of business, but she's known my preferences outside work lay elsewhere almost as long as I have. She'll expect it not to last, and in the meantime she'll just pretend it, and you, don't exist."

As he and Ezra headed out to do the ranch shopping, Chris thought of her tale of Beattie and Olive, of the shrewd mind beneath the surface illusions she wove like a cobra charmer, and wondered if Ezra knew Maude quite as well as he thought he did.

::::::

Five days after he and Ezra returned home, Chris was in the garage behind the house guiding Vin through the steps in changing the spark plugs in Dad's old war-vintage Knucklehead. Both Vin and--surprisingly--JD were eager to try it out, but neither had any experience with sumbitch Harleys. Chris told them what Dad had told him and Buck: They could ride the bike once they knew how to maintain it from the ground up. You didn't go cruising on a powerful and temperamental bike like the Sixty-one without knowing shit about how to handle it. Josiah, who'd actually been more into the bike in his wild teen years than either Chris or Buck, would give them driving lessons on it, but it'd mostly fallen to Chris to oversee the mechanical end.

Fortunately, both Vin and JD were quick students. Also fortunately for Chris's patience, Nathan was way too sensible and Ezra way too disdainful to be interested in a bike that might appear, to the unloving eye, as "death on wheels" and a "piece of rusting junk", so his stint as teacher to enthusiastic youth was nearing its end.

He was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, half-watching Vin, who pretty much knew what he was doing by now, when Mad leaped up from her doze in a long finger of late-afternoon shade and raced around the side of the house. Between her barks, he could hear the crunch of tires on the drive, followed by voices.

Vin glanced up from his crouch. "Did somebody book for this afternoon?"

"I don't think so." Chris turned his wrist to look at his watch. "Doubt it was a booking this close to supper."

A neighbor probably. He stayed where he was as Vin finished up and stood, smiling with satisfaction as he wiped his hands on an oily rag. He was about to speak when JD shouted for them.

"Chris, Vin! We've got company!"

He pushed off from the wall as Vin dropped the rag on the workbench and tucked his hands into the pockets of his worn jeans. They rounded the house to find all the others--even Nathan, home for the day and wiping his hands on a dish towel--in a clump a couple of yards from the front steps. In the driveway beyond them sat a gleaming, dark blue sedan. JD looked up and waved them over, grinning like the Easter Bunny'd come to visit.

As they got closer, he could hear Ezra's voice, and the tight, terse sound of it made Chris's neck and shoulders tense. When they reached the group, JD stepped back and the others looked up, with Buck and Nathan also making room for them.

"And these are our brothers Chris and Vin." JD's eyes were bright and his smile near blinding.

Time seemed to slow and sounds faded around Chris as he watched Maude Standish's elegantly arranged blonde head turn. She smiled at Vin, nodding gracefully, and her eyes moved to Chris--and froze on his face. He watched her pretty eyes widen in a comically classic reaction moment that wasn't remotely funny while the smile fell off her face like a stone kicked over a cliff.

She was damned good, though--good at whatever it was she did: conning, pretending. In barely a moment, she had her smiling face back on and was turning to JD with an inquiring look and a honey-sweet voice.

"Your brother--Chris, I think you said?"

"Yes, ma'am. Chris is the second oldest of us, after Josiah. This is Ezra's mom, Chris!" Damned if the kid didn't sound as happy as if she'd really come with a big Easter basket full of goodies.

Maude turned back to Chris, holding out her hand, her voice smooth and mannerly. "How delightful to meet you at last. Ezra's mentioned you many times." Her smile was charming and poised, and it was only because he was looking for it that he glimpsed the brittleness under the show of warmth.

Aware of his brothers pressed close on all sides, intent and watchful, Chris took her hand. "Welcome to the Larabee Ranch." He let go as quickly as he could.

"Why, thank you, Mr. Larabee." She deepened her fake smile, then turned to Vin, who got boyishly tongue-tied and red-faced, to Buck's amusement. Vin vigorously rubbed his palm on his jeans and gingerly shook her hand before shooting a glare at the chuckling Buck.

Chris looked at Ezra, standing tense and fidgety beside her. Ezra didn't have half of Maude's acting chops, apparently; agitation was practically rolling off him in waves. Chris caught his eyes and gave him a quick frown; Ezra took a breath and visibly forced calm over himself, like donning a cloak.

"Mrs. Standish was in the area on business and decided she could spare a little time to come visit Ezra and meet the rest of us," JD was telling Chris and Vin, glowing eyes shooting between them. "Isn't that great?"

"My dear boy, do please call me Maude. We are family, after all." Her smiling eyes slid from JD to Chris, then back.

"Well, Mother, now that you've met the _family_, I'm sure you'll be eager to get on your way."

Josiah stepped forward, eyes fixed on Maude with a soulful look. "Don't be so hasty, little brother. Perhaps Maude would like to freshen up before she leaves." If he were wearing a hat, Chris knew he'd be holding it over his heart.

At least Ezra was momentarily diverted into looking scandalized and horrified.

Nathan said, "Yes, ma'am, would you care to come inside? We'll be putting dinner on the table soon and we'd be real happy for you to join us."

"How very kind of you, Nathan." She fluttered her eyelashes just a little as she smiled up at him, which she somehow managed to make look matronly and kindly rather than flirtatious.

"Yes, terribly kind." Ezra took Maude by the elbow. "Didn't you say you were expecting an important phone call at your hotel in, oh--" he glanced at his watch "--less than an hour? Such a pity you can't stay longer."

She neatly withdrew her arm from Ezra's grasp and took hold of his arm in turn, effectively forcing him to stand still beside her as she smiled round at them. "Oh, it's just that bloated wood tick Preston; he'll wait. Having come all this way, it would be a shame if I didn't get to know your fascinating family a little better, darling."

Josiah offered his arm and she transferred her hand from Ezra's to his. JD led the way to the house, chattering as he pointed out the corrals and buildings while Mad loped ahead to await them on the porch and Nathan followed. Buck headed back to the barn to finish the last of the chores with Vin going along to help.

Ezra ran a hand through his hair. "I have no idea why she came." He pitched his voice for Chris's ears only. "She gave no hint. Again. I--" He shook his head.

"Come on." He wanted to touch Ezra; run a hand down his back, squeeze his shoulder, but they didn't do anything even that innocuous outside the bedroom. He kept the tips of his fingers safely tucked into the front pockets of his GWGs. "She'll be gone soon, and the damage is done already, anyway."

Maude was, to put it mildly, an entertaining dinner guest. She made JD's eyes bulge with tales of Mardi Gras; grabbed Nathan's attention talking about voodoo practice as she'd known it in her childhood, and Buck's with a description of an exotic whorehouse she claimed to have known via a "business matter" in her youth. She made Vin laugh so hard he spit up his Tiger Red in the middle of a story about Ezra and a dancing dog called Elsie. Josiah beamed and hung on her every word while she threw him glances from under her lashes.

Ezra rolled his eyes, crossed his arms, drummed his fingers on the table, jiggled his leg, and generally made his impatience known, which she ignored with apparent ease.

She also entirely ignored Chris. He lounged in his chair at the table, idly fingering his coffee mug and watching silently: Maude, his brothers, Ezra. _A formidable woman_, he'd heard Ezra call her, but he hadn't realized just how freaking true it was. She was playing her small audience like a master violinist, somehow knowing exactly which note would make the best appeal to each of them. He wondered if she'd gained those insights from comments Ezra might've made or from her own lightning fast observations. He wouldn't be surprised if she was winging it on her own damned impressive skills.

She herself broke the spell she'd woven when she rose after a meal that had stretched to two hours from daylight through dusk to dark. Josiah helped her into her coat and they gathered around her at the door.

"So gratifying to have met you all at last. It's reassuring to know my darling boy is safe in the bosom of such a supportive and--" she smiled "--_loving_ family."

She turned to Josiah, saying his name with a little tilt of her head and a sultry lingering over the vowels.

He reached for her hand, which she graciously allowed him to cradle. "I'll count the days--Maude--until you're able to visit us again."

Ezra cringed, which made Vin cough in an attempt to hide a snicker.

Maude moved on to say goodbye to Vin and Nathan, then paused before Chris. He met her eyes for the first time since they'd come inside the house and saw a straight look. She murmured some meaningless pleasantry and he nodded. She turned to take her leave of Buck and JD.

"I hope you'll come visit us again soon, ma'am." JD looked at her with the joy of a young man who had adored his own mother and was still young enough to believe all mothers were made of similar stuff, despite Ezra's various attempts to persuade him otherwise.

"Maude, my sweet boy." She patted his arm.

"Yes, ma'am. Maude." JD fairly glowed.

Chris caught the tail-end of Ezra's rolled eyes as Ezra moved to Maude's side and reached to open the door for her. Chris joined them.

"I'll walk you out to the car."

They were silent, even with the door shut behind them, until they'd left the porch and were on the driveway. The pool of light from the porch didn't quite reach Maude's DeVille, but gave enough light to see each other's faces as they stopped beside the car.

"Mother, what are you doing here?"

"Really, Ezra, such a sourpuss! Anyone would think you weren't glad to see me."

"Mother." Chris didn't need to see Ezra to know he was grinding his teeth.

Maude gave a tinkling laugh. "Good Lord, such suspicion! My intentions were spotless, I assure you. I'm so rarely in this area, and when I phoned the ranch and talked to your delightful little brother JD, who told me you were in Portland, it seemed serendipitous that I could see you there. But since I _am_ so rarely in this part of the country, and since JD made such a sweet impression, I decided after seeing you that it would also be a pity if I missed the opportunity to meet your brothers. Who knows how long it might be before I'm out this way again."

She glanced at Chris on the last sentence; he met her straight gaze with his own, like to like. Her lips formed into a slight smile, barely discernible in the dim light, and she looked back to Ezra's shadowed figure.

"You know, darling, you might not recall, but when you first came to live with me, you used to draw and color pictures of your family incessantly. I suppose it was some childish means of gaining solace or somesuch thing." She waved a hand, pale and ethereal looking in the thin moonlight. "Your brother Chris stood out as quite the distinctive figure; tall, thin, and the only one with yellow hair."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, I'm no artist. You couldn't possibly have recognized him from those scribbles."

"Of course not. But it hasn't escaped my notice that, from adolescence, you've always gravitated toward lean, blond men. I believe, in crude jargon, it's known as having a 'type'."

She met Chris's eyes again, but he couldn't read anything beyond a furthering awareness of her shrewd intellect.

"And your point?" Ezra's voice was tense again.

She turned from Chris to pat Ezra's arm. "There is no point. I was as taken aback as you when I arrived today; if I'd known, I would never have come. This is hardly something _I_ ever wanted to discover."

Ezra caught her hand. He held it in his left and stroked it with his right. He was silent for a full minute as the three of them stood in the dark, he and Maude both waiting for Ezra. When Ezra finally spoke, it was in a low voice a hair off being shaky. "Mother, you know you can't say anything."

"Why, of course I know that! Really, Ezra, I didn't raise you to be such a ninny. It would hardly benefit any of us to have such a thing come to light, now would it? It's difficult enough skirting around your discommodious proclivities, but since you appear set on having them, this is just one more slight inconvenience to add to the rest. At least it's all part and parcel of the same thing, rather than some entirely unrelated foible. I've been used to dealing with this one since you were a gangly teenager."

Ezra huffed a laugh with more than a jot of relief in it. "I never gangled."

Maude drew her hand away and touched his cheek. "No, you were always a remarkably handsome boy. And fortunately your weedy stage was short-lived and your spotty stage mercifully even briefer." She turned to open the car door. "And now I must go. I want to get an early start tomorrow and I'll need to navigate my way out of this charming little burg of yours onto the Interstate."

"Perhaps I should drive you into town. The street lighting is archaic in places."

"Lord, I've been finding my way around since long before you were born! My hotel's on the main street, of which I gather you have only one instance, so it won't be hard to find."

She lifted her face for Ezra to kiss, squeezed his arm gently, then turned to Chris. After a brief staring match between them, she was the first to offer her hand. Her grip had all its previous firmness without any of the playfulness.

"I trust you'll look after my boy, Mr. Larabee." Her tone was urbane, the words rounded and softened with her Louisiana accent, but steel lay bare beneath.

Ezra had once likened Maude to a diamondback: _Graceful, beautiful, and outright deadly if you make a wrong move._ Chris had an abrupt, prickling sense the description was conceivably as much truth as metaphor.

He let his own feral side show in a smile he was sure her sharp gaze would read even in the reduced light. "It's been a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Standish," he said, and meant it.

As they watched the sedan's lights disappear down the long drive, Ezra sighed. "Well, as usual, she's managed to age me about ten years in a mere couple of hours." His voice warmed. "But she is an extraordinary woman."

Chris lifted his hand, hesitated for a moment, then touched the small of Ezra's back. He ran his palm up Ezra's spine till his hand rested between his shoulder blades. As Ezra turned to him, startled expression just discernible in the muted light, Chris urged him closer with a press of his hand and bent his head toward him. Ezra's lips were open in welcome when Chris's mouth touched his, and they kissed for the first time under the stars in their own front yard.

"She is," he agreed, pulling back at last to brush his lips against the soft skin at Ezra's temple while his hand cupped Ezra's bare neck and Ezra's hands rested warm and solid on each side of Chris's waist, strong and steady anchors.

_And like mother, like son...._ The thought of Ezra becoming steadily more like Maude over the years was one-part scary--and nine-parts exhilarating. Chris smiled in the darkness, mentally figuring the various ways life with Ezra was likely to become ever more stimulating over time.

"She's frequently right about things, too." Ezra's voice was a hushed breath of warm air against Chris's ear. "For instance, her idea of having an early night strikes me as an outright inspired notion." He moved his hands down to settle on Chris's hips, branding warmth through the worn denim onto Chris's skin. "Wouldn't you agree?"

"Oh, I reckon I could be convinced--seeing as your weedy stage _was_ short-lived and all."

Ezra laughed and they moved apart. They fell into step together; no longer touching, but flowing in a matched rhythm sure as a creek toward the sea.


End file.
